Republicans want food stamps cut in big farm bill

View full sizeAssociated Press fileCombines, costing several hundred thousand dollars each, harvest a field during a corn harvesting demonstration at the Husker Harvest Days fair, in Grand Island, Neb. The Senate is debating the farm bill, a 1,000-page production that will determine farm policy well into the future.

WASHINGTON -- The
1,000-page "farm bill" being debated in the Senate is somewhat of a
misnomer. Four of every five dollars in it -- roughly $80 billion a year --
goes for grocery bills for one of every seven Americans through food
stamps.

Republicans say Congress could cut the cost $2 billion a
year by just closing a pair of loopholes that some states use to award
benefits to people who otherwise might not qualify.

"This is more
than just a financial issue. It is a moral issue," says Sen. Jeff
Sessions, R-Ala., one of several Republicans pushing for cuts in
spending for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly
known as SNAP.

The program has swelled from 28 million to 46
million participants and its costs have doubled in the past four years.
The recession and slow recovery have increased the number of people
unemployed over the same period from 8 million to 12 million.

The
Agriculture Department credits the program with keeping about 5 million
Americans out of poverty every year. Before 2004, people received paper
stamps or coupons worth $1, $5 or $10. Since then, all 50 states, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Island and Guam have moved
to debit-type cards that allow recipients to authorize transferring
their benefits from a federal account to retailer accounts.

Democrats
led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York are resisting a proposal by
Agriculture Committee leaders in both parties to trim a modest $250
million from the program each year by cracking down on abuses.

They say that would deprive about half a million households losing an average $90 a month in food aid.

The
Republican-controlled House, which has yet to write its own farm bill,
is certain to demand greater food stamp cuts, too. Finding common ground
with the Democratic-led Senate could be key to whether Congress can
pass a 1,000-page bill that also makes fundamental changes in farm
subsidies before the current legislation bill expires at the end of
September.

Sessions points out that the federal government now
spends twice as much on food stamps as it does on fixing the nation's
roads and bridges, and that SNAP is now the government's second-largest
federal welfare program, following Medicaid.

To qualify,
households, except those with elderly or disabled members, must have
gross incomes below 130 percent of the poverty line. The Agriculture
Department, which runs the program, says the average monthly benefit per
person as of last November was $134.15. As for helping the economy, it
calculates that each dollar in benefits generates $1.72 in economic
activity, including 16 cents for farmers who grow the food.

While
critics such as Sessions say the program is ripe for savings, the
department says SNAP is doing a good job of eradicating fraud and error,
with only 3 percent of payments in 2010 being excessive or going to
ineligible households.

The Senate last week rejected an amendment
by Rand Paul, R-Ky., that would have saved $322 billion over 10 years by
cutting it $45 billion a year and turning spending decisions over to
the states. The vote was 65-32 against, with 13 Republicans joining
every Democrat in opposing it.

"I think Americans would be flabbergasted at the amount of money" spent on food stamps, Paul said.

Sen.
Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who chairs the Agriculture Committee, said
the Paul amendment was "outrageous and would go completely against the
commitment we as a country have made to help those who truly need it."

She
said the bill already takes steps to eliminate abuses in the system,
such as barring lottery winners from receiving benefits, ending misuse
by college students, cracking down on benefit trafficking and preventing
liquor and tobacco stores from accepting food assistance benefits. It
also targets a practice of some 16 states of giving as little as $1 to
individuals in home heating assistance so that they can qualify for
additional food stamp benefits.

In an agreement reached by the two
parties late Monday on what amendments to the farm bill will be
allowed, Sessions will get a vote on amendments that target efforts by
states to get as large a share of federal food stamp aid as possible.
None of the changes, he said, would result in people going hungry.

One
was similar to an amendment Sessions proposed that would save nearly $1
billion a year by stopping the practice of 14 states and the District
of Columbia providing people with as little as $1 a year in home heating
assistance -- even if they don't have a heating bill -- so they can
automatically qualify them for greater food stamp benefits of up to $100
a month.

Another $1.1 billion a year, he says, could be saved by
assuring that recipients don't have assets exceeding federal eligibility
limits.

The Congressional Research Service says 40 states plus
Guam and the Virgin Islands use what is called "broad-based categorical
eligibility" to let people who exceed federal asset limits on
eligibility collect food stamps if they're getting some other federal
benefit, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

This
year, for example, households with liquid assets above $2,000 could not
qualify for food stamps. The limit is $3,250 if the household includes
an elderly or disabled person. The value of a home, retirement and
education savings and up to $4,650 of the fair market value of a
household's motor vehicles are excluded from the assets test.

Sessions
also would end a program of bonus payments for states that increase
registration for food stamp benefits and require the government to
verify that recipients are in the country legally.

The House is
waiting to see what the Senate will do on the farm bill before acting,
but Republicans there already have made it clear that food stamps are
fair game as lawmakers look for ways to cut government deficits.

The
House Republican budget introduced earlier this year would reduce food
stamp spending by an average $13.3 billion a year over the coming decade
and turn the program into block grants for the states. And in May, the
House Agriculture Committee approved an average $3.3 billion annual cut
in food stamp benefits as part of a GOP proposal to avert automatic cuts
in defense spending to go into effect next year. Both those proposals
are going nowhere in the Senate.

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